8 Ways to Say 'I Love You'
by J. Peterson
Summary: The one thing Beca Mitchell didn't count on is that love only gives you one chance to avoid it. And she just missed hers.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:**  
_Pitch Perfect_, all characters and related indica are the property of Universal Pictures. No profit made, no infringement intended.

**Author's notes:**  
Firstly, I realized that I've had a Twitter account (jslothp) for ages and forgot about it. So... follow, or something. Send prompts, if you want; no promises on me actually making anything of them, though.

As for anything actually related to the story (because I ramble), the chapters for this fic should be short ones. That _might_ mean that I update that much faster, but really, I have no clue.

Enjoy.

**8 Ways to Say 'I Love You'**  
Prologue (to losing your heart)

* * *

_Love, like fire, will grow from the faintest spark. Unless you douse it at the very beginning (when you don't even realize it's there), you have no hope of escaping the blaze._

_Love, like fire, can burn. But love, unlike fire, can also heal._

xXxXx

Love and relationships, Beca Mitchell has long since determined, is something best left far, far by the wayside if you have any brains at all. The souring of her parents' marriage and subsequent, highly acrimonious divorce taught her that much, and her father's abandonment only brought the lesson home with a blunt, smarting punch to the chest.

Not that she's still hung up about it or anything.

He really shouldn't have expected anything other than her wanting to isolate herself at Barden, but she supposes that since his metier is literature and not maths, he might have lost the ability to use elementary logic a while back. She's agreed to attend and get the higher education he keeps blathering about (_D's get Degrees_ and that's all she needs to know), so what more does he want from her?

Yeah, she's here, but that doesn't mean she has to like it. In fact, she's firmly committed to getting out of here as fast as possible, and with as little wasted effort as she can get away with. She's planning to attend just enough classes and turn in enough homework to qualify for graduation, and otherwise spend the rest of her time working on skills she'll actually need once she can finally go to LA.

Of course her father is on her case within an hour of her actually arriving to this 4-year jail sentence. Jesus – she hasn't even finished setting up her equipment yet (although she _has_ figured out that any semblance of amiability between her and Kimmy Jin is a lost cause. Whatever.) Blah-blah, the college experience, but at least she manages to escape at the low price of wandering around the Activities' Fair for a little while.

And of course the only group whose booth actually piques her interest turns out to be one for Deaf Jews rather than Disc Jockeys. Teach her to expect to actually find something that would fit her in this place.

"Hi! Any interest in joining our a-capella group?"

Beca listens to the spiel from the smiling redhead and keeps a hold on most of the sarcastic remarks she'd otherwise aim at her high-strung, blonde companion. A-capella? Not really something to get _that_ worked up about. To her - to someone whose passion is beats and rhythm and creating one seamless song from several - there's something almost criminal about limiting the music by using no instruments at all.

It honestly seems pretty lame, and she says so.

"We played the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, you bitch!"

Props to Blondie for being able to call people names with a fairly genuine-looking smile on her face, but Beca is growing steadily more convinced that 'high-strung' doesn't even begin to describe her. Red, meanwhile, is clearly the calm to Blondie's (Aubrey's) jittery storm; friendly, open, and doing her best to keep any ruffling waves from turning into a full-scale tsunami.

"Help us turn our dreams into a reality?"

Trusting and hopeful, too, if that last sentence is anything to go by; enough that Beca actually feels a little bad about turning her down.

"Sorry, I don't even sing." She looks back and forth between them, and just barely remembers to tack the last word on to her next sentence because something about Red's blue eyes distracts her. "But it was really nice to meet you guys."

So the Activities Fair ends up being a bust, but it wasn't like she expected any different, anyway. At least it also means that she can avoid any distractions from her music, and as she returns to ignoring (and being ignored by) Kimmy Jin, she slides on her headphones, loses herself in the beats and finds no fault with that whatsoever.

'The College Experience' – peh. The only experience she wants from college is how she can leave it behind.

xXxXx

Love and relationships, Beca Mitchell has long since determined, is something best left far, far by the wayside if you have any brains at all. The souring of her parents' marriage and subsequent, highly acrimonious divorce has taught her that much.

But smart as she is, the one thing Beca Mitchell didn't count on is that love only gives you one chance to avoid it. One chance to steer clear of the person whose voice, eyes, scent and smile will soon occupy your every thought.

And she just missed hers.


	2. By learning

For disclaimers, please see part one.

**Author's notes:**  
I have a feeling these chapters are going to grow steadily longer as the story progresses. I could be wrong, though.

Enjoy.

**8 Ways to Say 'I Love You'**  
By learning (who she is)

* * *

_Meeting people is nothing out of the ordinary. We greet someone with a smile, or a 'hi', or a glare, depending on our mood and any previous experience with them. Sometimes fairly, sometimes not. Sometimes we never see them again, and sometimes they become our entire world._

_Regardless of what happens, no matter who they are, everyone we meet deserves our gratitude and respect; they change us in ways we don't even realize._

xXxXx

Beca spends her first two days at Barden ignoring her assigned schedule and sleeping in. Or, she did actually _glance_ at her schedule, but nothing stood out enough for her to be even slightly interested – this early in the freshman year, it's mostly intro to this and intro to that, anyway. She might have attended if they'd been honest enough to call it 'Surviving College 101'.

They didn't, though, so she stays up late mixing and catches up on the missed hours of sleep while her yearmates attend lectures on how to take notes, and presumably listen to a string of academics telling them how to do something they really should have figured out by the time they graduated high school.

Beca figured it out – she graduated at the top of her class and would've been valedictorian if she hadn't turned it down (and rolled her eyes at the offer afterwards). She was hoping that a high GPA in high school would negate her father's insistence on a college education, but no such luck.

Why apply herself now? Even if she did finish this year with another 4.0, she'd still be the daughter whose passion her father just doesn't get, and the 'unknowingly privileged white girl' that Kimmy Jin despised on sight.

So when her roommate rolls her eyes in disgust and closes the door behind her in the morning, Beca merely yawns, turns onto her other side and slips off to sleep again.

xXxXx

Beca isn't stupid enough to hang around in public view when she's skipping classes, and she has enough foresight to figure out both when her lectures start and end, and when her breaks are scheduled. She stays in her dorm when she's supposed to be at a lecture she can't be bothered to attend, and only ventures onto the sun-bathed quad during breaks, or after classes have ended for the day.

She finds a favorite spot soon enough - a shaded patch beneath a wide tree – and sits there with her headphones over her ears and her attention firmly focused on her laptop. People are mingling everywhere around her, of course. There are large groups, and small groups, and pairs – people connected loosely by their subjects of study only, or firmly by the bonds of either friendship or romance.

The loners, like Beca, stick out like bald wolves in a pack reunion, but Beca doesn't care. Last year she was different because she was the class brain – this year she's different because she's the antisocial freshman, and a little too alternative to a campus that seems to consist mostly of preps, jocks and nerds.

Two sides of the same coin. She's here because she was given little to no choice in the matter, and she'll be out of here in a heartbeat given half the chance, so she has no intention of trying to fit in.

The mix she's working on is finally starting to sound like it's getting to where she wants it to go, so Beca is startled and, in her own opinion, understandably annoyed when her headphones are suddenly removed by another pair of hands and her concentration broken. In fact, she's already taken a breath to berate whoever dared to interrupt her, but strangely feels her irritation fade when she looks up and meets a set of twinkling, sky-blue eyes.

"Look at you being all social," Red – the girl from the Fair – comments, and doesn't bother to wait for an invitation before sitting down next to her with a smile. "Ignoring everything around you is usually reserved for seniors, y'know."

"Who says I'm not a senior?" Beca returns glibly, and manages to wrangle her headphones back before the other girl puts them on.

Red ignores the 'hands-off' glare Beca shoots her way, and shrugs as she relinquishes her claim to the headphones. "Well, you've got the world-weary 'back off or suffer the consequences' aura down pat," she allows.

"So why are you here?"

The girl grins. "I'm bad at taking direction, and freshmen only get to order around seniors in the rarest of circumstances," she explains. "This doesn't qualify."

Beca's lips quirk faintly. "Again, who says I'm not a senior?"

"I do." Red tilts her head and studies Beca critically. "You're either a freshman or a transfer because I haven't seen you before, and transfers are a lot less willing to stand out."

"Unless they're seniors," Beca counters, and is honestly kind of entertained by the whole thing, bizarre as the conversation is.

Red giggles and leans in until their shoulders are touching, meeting Beca's mildly amused gaze with a crafty one of her own. "You..." she announces softly, certainly. "...are _not_ a senior." Pause. "You're way too tiny."

Beca snorts and shoves the now openly laughing girl away, but she's grinning all the same. "Dude," she complains. "Not cool. Way to make a first impression on people."

"Second," Red corrects her cheerfully. "And I'm right, aren't I?"

"About me being tiny or about me being a freshman?"

"Yes."

"... Ass." But she's chuckling anyway. "Yeah, you got me. My cover's blown."

"Chloe!" So that's her name, Beca determines as they both look up to see the high-strung blonde – Aubrey – standing at the other side of the quad. "Come on – we'll miss lunch!"

"Whoops, gotta go!" Beca stiffens in surprise when Chloe punctuates the phrase with a sudden hug before smoothly getting to her feet. "See you around, freshman!"

"See you," she mutters at the redhead's retreating back, and then returns to her work with a shake of her head.

xXxXx

Beca spends her first two days at Barden ignoring her assigned schedule and sleeping in. Or, she did actually _glance_ at her schedule, but nothing stood out enough for her to be even slightly interested.

But she hasn't yet figured out what her father means by 'the college experience' – that college is more than finding a major, studying yourself to exhaustion and getting a diploma. It's not just discovering a field that holds your interest. It's also learning how to handle and be around people – even (and especially) when you didn't set out to do so.

And she could probably handle being around Chloe.


	3. By accepting

For disclaimers, please see part one.

**Author's notes:**  
The shower scene is probably one of the most hilariously awkward ones I've seen in the last ten years. I hope I did it justice.

Enjoy.

**8 Ways to Say 'I Love You'**  
By accepting (her quirks)

* * *

_People are different; that's simultaneously one of the most fascinating and frustrating parts of humanity. Two individuals might have almost everything (or almost nothing) in common, but no one is exactly like anyone else._

_Developing a relationship (platonic or not) with someone means finding and accepting the things that set them apart from you. Learning what makes them special (to you or to the world)._

_Life would be boring if we were all the same._

xXxXx

Once her second week at Barden kicks into gear, she starts getting up early and attending her classes. Mostly because she knows that she _does_ have to make an effort; her father made it clear that failing out of college didn't count as 'trying' (he's bright enough to know that she'd do it in a second if she thought it would work). She shows up, she makes note of her assignments, completes them and hands them in, but she also lets her mind wander freely during the lectures, and makes no move to integrate herself with her classmates.

Beca still spends all her free time alone, still loses (hides) herself in the music. Her father doesn't get why she isn't making friends, no matter how many times she tells him that _she doesn't want to_. Barden and the people in it are distractions from her goal – nothing more. They're archetypal (one-dimensional characters straight out of a bad teen movie), about as intriguing as watching paint dry, and so easy to figure out that it's honestly disgusting.

If Beca wanted to hang around people like that, she'd collect old cardboard cutouts of 90's celebrities or something.

xXxXx

She prefers to shower in the evenings because it gives her that much extra time for other things in the mornings (like sleeping – she's still staying up late). When she isn't busy stacking records at WBUJ and trying to figure out if that Jesse kid is more aggravating or sort of annoyingly charming, she showers during the dinner rush when she can have the entire room to herself.

There was no shift with Jesse hiding behind various album covers today, so she's spent her time ensconced in YouTube; finding remixes and mashups done by both her favorite DJs and random strangers. Some were awesome, some were less so, but all of them helped her learn something (she's an excellent student when the subject interests her), and she figures that since she's stuck here for now, she can at least sharpen her own skills as much as possible before leaving for LA.

She's singing _Titanium_ to herself when she closes the curtain and turns on the shower, and the added noise of the water pattering against the tile is loud enough to make her raise her voice a little in turn. The spray is warm and comfortable (another benefit of having the room to herself), and while a slight whisper of cooler air does reach the skin on her back, she doesn't think anything of it.

"You _can_ sing!"

Aaaand Chloe's in the stall with her. Naked.

"Dude!" Beca swears her heart is literally in her throat as she spins on her heel in sheer fright, and almost slips as she lunges for the opaque shower curtain and yanks it closed again.

Chloe pulls it back open with remarkably little regard for anyone's lack of clothing. "How high does your belt go?"

"My what?" She's frantically trying to cover herself with two arms, a sponge and a semi-transparent bag – and then to squeeze as far back against the icy tile as possible when a third arm unabashedly reaches right in and turns the water off. "Oh, my God!"

"You _have_ to audition for the Bellas," Chloe tells her matter-of-factly, as if they were chatting in the quad again.

"I..." Beca's eyes drift down, and then snap back up and off to the side (the wall is safe) while she feels her face twist into some weird _holy-tweezers-what-is-this_ sort of uncomfortable grin. "I can't concentrate on anything you're saying until you cover your junk."

"Just... consider it," the other girl presses, while Beca tries to grab a hold of the curtain without revealing any more of herself. "This one time, we sang backup for Prince. His butt is so tiny that I can hold it with like, one hand."

Chloe's demonstration of how one would hold Prince's butt ends up knocking the curtain out of her grasp, along with the other things she was using for her flimsy cover. Beca's last option for maintaining some sort of decency is to turn around. "Seriously?" she questions over one shoulder. "I'm _nude_."

"You were singing _Titanium_, right?" Chloe counters.

The question surprises her enough to pull her out of the sheer awkward for a second. "You know David Guetta?"

"Have I been living under a rock? Yeah." Beca isn't sure which part her unexpected guest is agreeing to. "That song is my _jam._ My _lady jam_."

And the awkward is back, with a vengeance. "That's nice," she replies to the tile, because what else do you say to that?

"It is," Chloe agrees readily. "That song really builds," she adds with a wink.

Beca really hopes that she doesn't look as nonplussed and utterly out of her depth as she feels. "Gross."

"Can you sing it for me?"

What? "Dude, no! Get out!"

"Not for _that_ reason!" Well, thank God for that, because Beca didn't bring her whistle. "I'm not leaving here until you sing, so..."

Both her thoughts and her heart are thumping along at a way too high bpm, and is this girl really gonna stand there and enforce this trial by embarrassment until she agrees to a nude serenade?

Chloe sighs lazily and settles her hands on her hips.

Apparently so.

Slowly (and probably clumsily, because she's still trying to cover as much as possible), Beca turns back around. Her gaze is flitting rapidly back and forth between the wall and Chloe's face - her _face_, dammit – and she can't decide if this is the most awkward moment in her life so far, or if the top spot still belongs to the time when she had to run to her car and drive home in nothing but a thankfully very over-sized t-shirt.

But she takes a breath and starts to sing, and feels her eyes widen a little in surprise when Chloe's higher voice joins in at the second line. The acoustics in here aren't studio-quality, but they are pretty damned merciless, and Beca _still_ isn't picking up a single issue in the harmony.

It sounds pretty good. In fact, it sounds downright _awesome_, and she's relaxing bit by bit while both of their voices gain in strength. Beca knows music (even if she isn't an expert just yet), and because she knows music, she also knows how unlikely it is for two people to be able to sing together for the first time ever and manage to create something this flawless.

_Wow_.

By the time the last notes reverberate through the air, she's standing up straight with her arms at her sides, and is actually so utterly at peace with the situation that when Chloe gives her a _'See?'_ kind of smile, she smiles right back.

Then Beca's gaze drops briefly, and she quickly turns it to the ceiling while she dedicatedly chews on her lower lip to keep herself from saying something potentially stupid – the situation is weird enough as it is.

"Oh – yeah." Chloe glances down at herself, and finally seems to acknowledge the fact that maybe barging into to someone else's shower and performing a naked duet is just a tiny bit out of the ordinary. "I'm pretty confident about... all this."

"You should be," Beca comments, and nods her head like one of those silly little dashboard dolls while she wishes desperately for either some clothes or somewhere to hide.

Chloe seems perfectly happy to accept the compliment with a smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes, and she nods right back before her face clears and she manages to collect and hand over the towel Beca left by the end of the stall.

She takes it and tucks one end against her chest; grateful for the shield as she tries to figure out something to say, since the redhead is still standing there looking at her.

"Um... still need to shower," is what she ends up muttering, and then feels her jaw practically unhinge when a _third_ naked person joins the party.

"You have a lovely voice," the dark-haired, buff Adonis tells her with a flirty smile as he leans against the stall divider on one arm; apparently as comfortable as Chloe is.

"... _thanks_," she tells him, and then cuts her gaze to Chloe incredulously. Seriously?!

"Oh!" Chloe glances back and forth between then a few times before stepping back and taking Adonis with her – finally leaving Beca to the privacy of her shower.

"See you at auditions!" the redhead's disembodied voice floats back to her, and the sound echoes faintly between the tiles while Beca turns the shower back on and tries to gather up the shredded remains of aloof coolness that's puddling around her feet much like the water (because really? What just happened?).

For once, she doesn't bury herself in her mixes when she gets back to her dorm (she can't focus on any other song than _Titanium_ right now), and she doesn't even look up at the annoyed sigh that's Kimmy Jin's response to her pretty much collapsing into bed. She just faces the wall and closes her eyes, and tries to think of something other than the sound of her own voice melding with Chloe's.

But maybe there is something to this a-capella thing, she admits to herself.

Maybe.

xXxXx

Beca still spends all her free time alone, still loses (hides) herself in the music. Her father doesn't get why she isn't making friends, no matter how many times she tells him that _she doesn't want to_. Barden and the people in it are distractions from her goal – nothing more.

But there are distractions that pass you by like a frisbee whizzing far over your head, and there are distractions that latch on and stay with you, whether you notice them all the time or not. Like a melody that hides itself in your brain and only pops up when something reminds you of it, they stay in the background most of the time – slowly working their way into your thoughts and your life, until you can't remember a time where they weren't there.

That's the kind of distraction Chloe is.


	4. By trying something new

For disclaimers, please see part one.

**Author's notes:**  
I watched the video for Cups (both the music video and the clip from the movie) a few times while writing this bit. And I can totally see the music video as being... well, a sort of mini add-on to the movie itself. A stopover for Beca on the way to LA, maybe.

Enjoy.

**8 Ways to Say 'I Love You'**  
By trying something new (because she wants you to)

* * *

_Some of the things that we remember best when we look back, are the times where we stepped out of our designated comfort zones; times where something scared us (a little or a lot), but we did it anyway. We might do it for ourselves, we might do it for someone else, and it might turn out to be one of the worst (or one of the best) things we ever do._

_Either way, we end up learning from it; we end up becoming smarter, or more open, or less easily intimidated - someone just a little better than who we were before._

_And that's worth the effort, isn't it?_

xXxXx

Her third week at Barden feels a lot like a repeat of her first day - mainly because her father's promise of helping her move to LA after _one_ year instead of four is enough incentive to make her browse through the available, extra-curricular activities. The only real difference is that this time around, she's doing it via the campus website instead of wandering around the quad.

Beca resists looking up the Barden Bellas as long as she possibly can – long enough that she actually ends up learning the audition times from Jesse, who's hoping to become a Treblemaker. It's not because making music using only your mouth still seems a bit like cooking over a campfire when you have access to a state of the art kitchen – or it's not _just_ because of that.

xXxXx

"So you're seriously thinking of auditioning for the Bellas?"

That's the fifth time in the last hour Jesse's asked her that question, and the fifth time Beca's rolled her eyes at it. "Again, _maybe_," she replies, but doesn't look up from her sorting. Stacking CD's sucks, but at least she's figured out that it gets done faster if she starts out by arranging them alphabetically – that way she doesn't have to spend nearly as much time trotting back and forth between the shelves.

"Sorry." Jesse sends her a slight grin from his place a few shelves away. "Just doesn't really seem like your thing, you know?"

"So you keep saying," she mutters, and slips _Kings of Leon_ in between _Ja Rule_ and _Lostprophets_.

And Beca's not _that_ clueless – she's long ago picked up on the fact that Jesse's pulling out every stop he can think of in trying to make conversation with her; besides, he's really not that subtle at sidelong glances, even though he seems to think he is.

He seems like a nice guy, really, she decides as she gathers up the stacks that belong on the furthest shelves, and carefully deposits them in the box with a clatter of plastic on yet more plastic. But their conversation is constantly halting (probably her fault more so than his), and there just doesn't really seem to be any of that kind of chemistry. Luke might've thought so based on the 'no sex on the desk' comment, but Luke also keeps calling her 'Becky' no matter how many times she corrects him, so she's not really willing to lend a whole lot of credence to his judgment.

But Jesse is right in the fact that she's thinking about auditioning for the Bellas. 'Thinking' being the key word. She still thinks a-capella (not to mention 'synchronized lady dancing to a Mariah Carey chart-topper') is pretty lame, but it's still music and for that reason something she should be able to do without having to learn a whole host of unfamiliar things. Joining a group that competes on a national level should also be something her father can 'see', as he put it, and should hopefully get him off her back.

So yeah, she's thinking about it.

xXxXx

By Friday afternoon on her third week, she's mostly stopped thinking. In fact, she's decided several times to just go to the stupid audition and see what happens, and she keeps getting a little closer to the auditorium every time before reconsidering, turning around and heading back to her dorm.

It's about a 50-20 step ratio. Beca decides to audition, takes 50 steps, reconsiders, takes 20 steps in the other direction, then reconsiders again, and so on. She's stalked back and forth along the quad so many times that even the members of the Quidditch club are giving her odd looks by now.

"Jesus, Mitchell, just go already," she mutters at herself as she turns back towards the auditorium for the Nth time. She gets all the way there this time, for which she gives herself a figurative little pat on the back, but it still takes her a few more minutes of internal debate before she actually convinces herself to open the door and slip into an abandoned hallway.

Now, of course, there's an entirely different problem. Granted, she arrived late enough that the whole thing's already started and probably missed a bit for that reason, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that everyone is singing the same Kelly Clarkson song, and that there's probably a reason for that. What's more, a glance through the doorway she's standing by tells her that this apparently isn't just a Bellas audition – she can see both the Treblemakers, the BU Harmonics and even some of the High Notes dotted around the seats in front of the stage, so apparently this is a joint thing.

Awesome. Beca takes a deep, slow breath and steps back out of sight while she tries to convince herself that as long as she does this, she can at least point out to her father that she _tried_ to put herself out there and take part.

Then she bounces in place a little and sends the double door to the outside a brief glance.

"Ugh." She crosses her arms over her chest, deliberately turns her back to the door and lets her forehead hit the wall with a soft thump. It's really, _really_ tempting to just leave and not have to deal with all those people, or the butterflies (more like pterodactyls) in her stomach, or the fact that she now has no idea what the hell she's supposed to sing even _if_ she can make herself step onto that stage.

But she can't. Parental pressure and her want to move to LA not withstanding, what's really keeping her here is a combination of hopeful, blue eyes, a deliciously harmonious rendition of _Titanium_ (and after Chloe told her what she told her, she's absolutely _not_ singing that) and that damn _smile_ the redhead gave her – like she'd found something in Beca that even she didn't know was there.

Now the noise level from the auditorium lessens, and she chances a glance around the edge of the door to see two guys on stage, and in the seats, the faint movement of people beginning to gather up their things in order to leave.

"Oh! Wait!" Chloe spots her purely by chance (unless she's been looking for her), and Beca wonders if that's a good thing or not, because now she pretty much has to do something. "There's one more."

Damn. But Beca forces something resembling a smile onto her face and steps onto the stage, raising one hand in a little wave that hopefully doesn't look as strained as it feels.

"Hello," she greets, and the first couple of steps she takes are way too long because even though Chloe's smiling and waving her forward encouragingly, she's looking straight into her eyes and all Beca can think about is the last time she saw her and oh _man_ this is so awkward. "I didn't know we had to prepare that song."

"Oh, that's okay," Chloe assures her, though Aubrey – who's sitting next to her – doesn't exactly look like she agrees. "Sing anything you want."

Anything. Right.

"Uh..." There's a bright, neon-yellow plastic cup on the desk in front of the two Bellas' captains, and Beca hesitates for a second when she spots it. Well... it's not done and it really was meant for music, but she _has_ been playing around with it without any added instruments. Just with her own hands against a flat surface and bringing in some percussion elements by using a measuring cup, but maybe...

Oh, hell, why not? She throws caution to the proverbial wind and kneels on the dusty stage floor before reaching out, then pauses and gestures towards the cup. "May I?"

No objection comes forth – Chloe's actually encouraging her while Aubrey just looks somewhere between confused, apprehensive and reluctantly intrigued, so she takes the cup and carefully empties the pens out of it with a grimace.

Then she sits back and adjusts her position until she's got her legs pulled up under her, deposits the cup on the floor and gives the watching audience (but mainly Chloe) a strained little smirk while she tries to remember exactly how she worked this out. Was it the floor first? Or the cup? Or... Hang on. Two claps, then three taps to the... yeah, that was it.

Beca starts the routine before her nerves get any worse than they already are, and thankfully her body seems to remember the motions without any further, conscious prodding on her part. Damn good thing too, because she's desperately trying_ not_ to think – she's pretty sure that if she did, she'd mess up. She's already close enough to doing that whenever she glances up, because while Aubrey's attention is mainly focused on the cup she's manipulating, Chloe is looking straight at _her_.

_Oh, I know you're gonna miss me when I'm gone_  
_Clunk, tap-thump_

She leaves the cup alone after the last clap of its open end against the floor, and rests her elbows on her thighs with a quiet exhale. Chloe, she soon notices, is smiling about as widely as she's even seen her smile (which is saying something, because when does that girl _not_ smile?), and Aubrey... Aubrey looks both thoughtful, and like she's impressed and trying really, really hard not to show it.

Beca shifts her gaze back to meet Chloe's, and raises one eyebrow in silent question. _Happy now?_

The redhead just grins in reply, and surreptitiously gives her two thumbs up while mouthing a word that looks suspiciously like '_awesome_'.

She feels the tug at one corner of her mouth, and leans back on her hands with a satisfied little smirk.

Yeah. That was pretty awesome, wasn't it?

xXxXx

On Sundays, Beca has no compunctions whatsoever about sitting in her favorite spot on the quad all day; at least as long as the weather allows, which it thankfully does today. There's no classes to miss, no homework to skip – and even if there was, she _is_ actually switching back and forth between a series of her musical projects and a paper she has due for one of her introductory classes.

It's her own voice emerging from the headphones right now, and she's watching the peaks and valleys on the screen with a critical eye, then frowning and adding a note to specific part of the number with a soft clattering of keystrokes.

_Tm V, watch t/str & don't b. Rerec._

It's a smattering of what might seem like a series of random letters and symbols to the outside observer; a type of logical shorthand that probably wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to anyone but Beca herself, but it's her project, her music, her voice and her computer, so that doesn't really matter.

"Hey." She picks up the voice during a pause in the music, and removes the headphones on her own this time.

"Hey," she returns Chloe's greeting. "What's up?"

The redhead sits down next to her with a smug little smile, and leans back against the tree. "Oh, nothing," she remarks with a strangely playful tone. "Just wanted to let you know that if you get a bag pulled over your head next week, don't freak out."

"That's a remarkably specific thing to not freak out over," Beca comments, and rests her head in one hand. "So I'm guessing you know something I don't."

"Yup." Chloe pops the 'p' with a grin. "But, y'know, secrecy and all that. So just don't start swinging, okay?"

"Ruin my fun, why don'tcha?"

xXxXx

Beca resists looking up the Barden Bellas as long as she possibly can. It's not because making music using only your mouth still seems a bit like cooking over a campfire when you have access to a state of the art kitchen – or it's not _just_ because of that.

A-capella represents a different level of challenge when it comes to music, and she gets that. She can even appreciate it to a certain extent, but the whole thing still gets to her on some level. Part of it is because singing exposes her in a way that she's just not used to, and that's honestly kinda frightening, but most of it has to do with the fact that a-capella very much includes Chloe.

Chloe, who's as easy to talk to as Jesse should probably be. Only Jesse isn't, while Chloe is.

And Beca doesn't really know what that means.


End file.
